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Topic: Podcast Interview suggestions (Read 53185 times)

I would highly recommend Lydia Finch, an ex-Jehovah's witness in the UK who is speaking out against the abuses (sexual and psychological) within the church. Her story is moving and compelling, and it was science and skepticism that led her away from her traumatic past and into being an advocate for people in the religion who are afraid to leave or for people who have left but are isolated and shunned. She would be fantastic. (I posted a YouTube of an interview in the Religion section of the forum. Check it out.)

Todd Rider, a brilliant scientists with accomplishments in a variety of fields (for instance, he proved that many types of fusion reactor cannot work) and who's got a viable method for a comprehensive antiviral drug but cannot get funding.

Jeff Goldbloom - He might be hard to get on the show, but I recommend listening to his interview on WTF, especially the last 20 minutes or so. Marc offhandedly says something about his astrological sign and Goldbloom responds with "you know that's bs, right?" Which prompts Goldbloom to talk about reading A Demon Haunted World, praising Neil deGrasse Tyson, and saying that Cosmos was the first show he'd show his kid. He also pointed out that he wore a leather jacket as Ian Malcolm because "scientists are cool."

While he's not a "career-skeptic", he said he's trying to be more skeptical and seemed very excited to promote science and skepticism. It'd be great to hear if he has a "conversion story" and how he gets-along in a business so filled of woo.

Judith Curry just resigned as a Tenured Climatologist at Georgia Tech because of the Craziness in the industry. If you are not familiar with her work she has over 185 papers published on climate change. Because some of her work showed the deficiencies of climate modeling, some of her legitimate science work was politicized by the climate change denial movement and she has been vocal about the dangers of politicized consensus in science. Would be an interesting interview about how politics impacts science.

Judith Curry just resigned as a Tenured Climatologist at Georgia Tech because of the Craziness in the industry. If you are not familiar with her work she has over 185 papers published on climate change. Because some of her work showed the deficiencies of climate modeling, some of her legitimate science work was politicized by the climate change denial movement and she has been vocal about the dangers of politicized consensus in science. Would be an interesting interview about how politics impacts science.

Judith Curry just resigned as a Tenured Climatologist at Georgia Tech because of the Craziness in the industry. If you are not familiar with her work she has over 185 papers published on climate change. Because some of her work showed the deficiencies of climate modeling, some of her legitimate science work was politicized by the climate change denial movement and she has been vocal about the dangers of politicized consensus in science. Would be an interesting interview about how politics impacts science.

I feel Judith Curry is in the same boat with Bob Sears, the guy who kept proposing an alternative vaccine schedule. Sure they might have been okay at their jobs, and their approaches to carve out a "middle ground" with pseudoscientists might have seemed sensible at first glance, but it all went horribly wrong. Whenever they felt things weren't going their way, they focused all of their ire on the scientific community, and to staunchly refused to admit when they were wrong.

I don't care how great of a climate scientist Judith Curry was 20 years ago. Her influence on the public's understanding of global warming is without a doubt a huge black mark on her reputation. Even if a portion of her complaints about nastiness within the climatology community are true (as they almost surely are, since this is something that happens even in apolitical scientific disciplines), she never seems to have any reasonable suggestions of how to fix them, nor awareness that her own approach is making it worse.

Not interested in giving this person a platform on the SGU unless there is another senior climatologist on the show (which would still be blatant false balance in favor of climate deniers).

I've been digging into a lot of Noam Chomsky stuff (books and interviews) recently and I think he would be absolutely fascinating to have interviewed on the SGU. I think he still spends 4-6 hours a day just replying to correspondence (he replies to basically all of his emails) so I think he'd also be realistic to get in touch with and actually get on the show too.

I got the idea that he might be an excellent guest for the SGU after watching the dialogue between Lawrence Krauss and him:

Ever gonna have Rebecca on as a special guest or anything? Not entirely sure how things were left there, and although she somewhat irked me the last few years of her rogueship, I do miss her. I feel like I grew up with her, really. Started listening to the SGU at, what?, 14 I think.

Ever gonna have Rebecca on as a special guest or anything? Not entirely sure how things were left there, and although she somewhat irked me the last few years of her rogueship, I do miss her. I feel like I grew up with her, really. Started listening to the SGU at, what?, 14 I think.

I would not mind an official response to my question. But, you've had a main panel member (who arguably made the circumstances which led to you (the SGU) becoming what you are even now) out there, and have never really mentioned her nor have had her on since she decided to leave. What the heck is going on?

Is it just me in honesty or does that not seem strange? Is she being so alternative as to the opinions of the cast, or does the cast (or Steven (although Cara controls things now if the SGU wants relevance)) not want her on? What is going on?

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"We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings."

The guys expressed no hard feelings at the departure and I see no reason to think there were. That said, Rebecca's now doing her thing and seems successful at it and they've got an excellent replacement in the person of Cara Santa Maria who is more focussed on science communication and more aligned with the show's purpose. I don't see any reason to think it's anything other than that they've just moved on.

As for "official response," I wouldn't expect one here. The rogues do not generally respond to such questions on the forum. Indeed, I wouldn't expect any sort of public statement. I think it's pretty much settled.

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I would like to propose...that...it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. — Bertrand Russell

It just seems completely strange to me that they have had Rebecca, to me arguably the person who gave the SGU much of the popularity leading to what they are today, on zero times. Why? An ex-rogue who was with the SGU for so many years.

Forgive me for my gut responses, please. Rebecca has been around since the SGU introduced her to us and through her, us to the entire world. I completely do not understand why she has not been back on the SGU (as was suggested in her last episode).

I hope none of that seemed argumentative. It's just for me, she was one of the pillars the SGU lives on today. A huge mother of a pillar, frankly.

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"We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings."